


Le Chat

by jamestiqueeriuskirk



Category: Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Accidental Witch Valjean, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Crack Treated Seriously, Familiar Javert, M/M, Sexual Tension, no really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 02:18:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1965216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamestiqueeriuskirk/pseuds/jamestiqueeriuskirk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The man was tall, dark, and nothing special in the looks department. He would have been entirely unremarkable, if a little intimidating, if not for the fact he had just materialized out of thin air in Valjean’s living room.<br/>“Well?” He asked, crossing his arms, face stern.<br/>Valjean, a man of few words at the best of times, managed to reply quite eloquently, considering the circumstances.<br/>“Er.”<br/>The man huffs, exasperated, as if he’s the one being inconvenienced here, like he hasn’t just appeared unbidden in a stranger’s house and made like he owns the place. “Just my luck to be summoned by the most incompetent of witches.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Le Chat

**Author's Note:**

> idk lol there are so many important things I should be working on

The man was tall, dark, and nothing special in the looks department. He would have been entirely unremarkable, if a little intimidating, if not for the fact he had just materialized out of thin air in Valjean’s living room.

“Well?” He asked, crossing his arms, face stern.

Valjean, a man of few words at the best of times, managed to reply quite eloquently, considering the circumstances.

“Er.”

The man huffs, exasperated, as if he’s the one being inconvenienced here, like he hasn’t just appeared unbidden in a stranger’s house and made like he owns the place. “Just my luck to be summoned by the most incompetent of witches.”

Witches! Valjean has been many things in life, a good deal of them shameful, but never has he stooped so low as to practice magic. He is a man of God, thank you very much.

At his lack of response, the man- perhaps not a man, if he believes he’s been bade here by ungodly magic. A demon, then, or some other such fearsome apparition, to appear to a man while he was praying- seems to grow suspicious, peering at Valjean discerningly. “You did summon me, did you not?”

“Are you a demon?”

The creature’s laugh is barklike, but not entirely unkind. “I suppose that answers my question. Now, to answer yours! I am a familiar.”

Valjean can’t work out what that could possibly mean, though he supposes anything is preferable to a demon.

“A witch’s companion.” The familiar goes on to clarify. “And you have summoned me.”

Valjean can recall doing nothing of the sort, and he tells the familiar as much. “There must be some mistake.” Hopefully, the thing will apologize and be on his way, leaving Valjean disturbed but no worse for the wear.

The familiar shakes his head rigorously. “A less experienced familiar may miss his target by several houses, if he is over-eager, but I am one of the best. There is no mistake. I do not make them. But, perhaps, you do. Tell me, monsieur, where did these candles come from?”

He points to the two long tapers flickering on Valjean’s altar, affixed in the polished silver candlesticks he’s kept for so many years.

“These?” Valjean asks, puzzled. “Why, they were a gift. From my daughter.”

“And what were you doing with them?”

“Nothing unscrupulous. I was merely using them to light the room while I…”

“While you what, man?” The familiar seems impatient with his bewilderment.

“I was praying for companionship. My daughter, you see, has recently been wed, and-“

“I have heard quite enough.” The familiar said. “And while I have little patience for old fools who make such mistakes,”- at this, Valjean made to protest, and the familiar held up his hand, silencing him- “the contract is binding. You prayed for companionship, and you shall have it. Perhaps the first item on the agenda should be to pay your daughter a visit, find out what sort of company she is keeping now that her father is no longer around to supervise her!”

And that was the start of the whole affair.

\--

The familiar’s name was Javert, it was later revealed, and he was far from human. Valjean’s poor heart almost gave up the first time black overcoat melted away into black fur and he was faced with an irritable black cat rather than an irritable gentleman, but he soon had to adapt to that as well. Any time it became necessary or convenient for Javert to accompany him out, he found a solemn black cat trailing a little ways behind him. He became known for it, in fact: the beggars he walked among every night made a game of trying to pet the hostile animal that seemed averse to any sort of human affection.

“You should not indulge them so,” Javert told him, one night, when they were seated beside a comfortable fire. Despite wearing the shape of a man tonight, and a rather large one at that, he seemed content to curl up in the armchair, legs tucked beneath him in a curiously feminine gesture. “They will never learn to depend on themselves.”

“Perhaps a cat can get by on scraps and its own cunning, but men often need a helping hand. There is no shame in that.” Valjean and Javert had many such disagreements. Javert may have been bound to his service, but it was reluctantly, and Valjean had decided Javert would likely prefer the employ of a reclusive and powerful witch with strange and unsavory goals.

“I am not really a cat, you know.” Javert snorted, and Valjean was not sure why, but he sounded almost bitter about it.

\--

Javert did as he pleased, for the most part, coming and going like Valjean would expect of a real cat, though he always seemed to find his way back in the evenings. Often, he joined Valjean at the supper table, though he had yet to partake of human food. Valjean wondered if it would tie him to the human world should he indulge, like Persephone to Hades. Wondered if he could leave a saucer of milk out for his morose familiar and wake in the morning to find him fully human and grateful to Valjean for breaking his bonds of servitude.

“Why do you never eat?” 

“There is no need for it.”

He tries not to let himself be disappointed.

\--

“I worry about you,” he says when he hears Javert let himself in through the garden door. He’s taken to leaving it unlocked, recently, to give his familiar easy access. He doesn’t worry about robbery when he has a bored and powerful spirit to guard his household.

“Unnecessary,” Javert assures as he sheds his overcoat and settles down beside Valjean. “I have been doing this much longer than you have even been alive.”

Javert doesn’t look older than Valjean, but then, he also doesn’t look as if he can transform himself into a cat at will. Valjean thinks of him, centuries ago, doing the bidding of medieval warlocks. He wonders if any of them ever asked about his well-being, or if they all simply commanded their captured entity to do as bid.

“In all that time, have you ever had a home?” Did familiars put stock in such things? Did familiars have a mother and a father, or did they simply crawl from Hell to aid witches in their mischief-making? No, no, even if others did, Javert did not. If nothing else, he wouldn’t be able to stand the chaos of Perdition.

“I have served many masters.” 

Valjean weeps for him.

\--

“What a precious cat, papa!” Cosette croons, tickling him under the chin. Javert, for the most part, puts up with the attention, and Valjean tries not to feel jealous. Javert never allows him such indulgences.

\--

He can’t help but feel Javert is unbearably bored with his lot. He isn’t a proper witch, after all, and he has no errands to send him out on. Javert tried, briefly, to explain the basics of witchcraft to Valjean, many of which horrified him, but that was quickly abandoned as a lost cause. The only thing he wishes to learn more about is the topic of familiars, but on that Javert seems strangely and uncharacteristically self-conscious.

\--

There is a thunderstorm one night, and Javert seems on edge because of it. He spends most of the evening pacing, restless, before cloistering himself in Valjean’s bedroom. When Valjean retires for the night, he finds Javert, wearing the shape of a cat, curled beneath his bedclothes. 

Deciding it best not to disturb him, Valjean simply slips in beside him. After all, there is nothing improper about sharing a bed with a cat!

\--

For a few confused moments, early in the morning, Valjean wakes to the feeling of another human shape pressed against his body. It is warm and stirring lightly and makes him feel all manner of things he’s tried so very hard to avoid for so very long.

“Javert?” He murmurs, voice muffled by sleep.

“It is early,” his familiar tells him, sounding oddly vulnerable. “Go back to sleep.”

Valjean does.

\--

It is a week before he sees Javert again, and while that is hardly the longest he’s gone without his company, he still cannot help but to worry.

All of Paris is practically drowned from the week-long storm by the night Javert returns, sopping wet and manic.

“I tried to stay away, you know,” he spits, and Valjean is so disappointed to hear that he doesn’t even bother berating Javert for dripping all over his nice carpet. “Tried to keep my distance. It isn’t proper, I told myself. He is a man of God, and you are a familiar. Well! It seems my will is not so iron as I had hoped.” He draws level with Valjean, standing mere inches from him. He is vibrating with a strange energy, more human that Valjean had ever seen him.

“If that is what you wish, I can dismiss you from my service.”

Javert chortles. “I have picked up a trick or two in my time spent in the employ of witches. A familiar’s magic is powerful, and if I truly desired it, I could break our bond without a second thought. But that is not what I desire and that is not the reason I have returned.”

He wants to be relieved to hear it, but any noise of appreciation he might have made is swallowed down by Javert’s lips upon his own, and oh, he hadn’t realized he was waiting for this moment until now.

\--

Later, when they are both resting on Valjean’s disheveled bed sheets, thoroughly exhausted, and Valjean is coming down from a high he hadn’t known was within the grasp of mortal men, he asks Javert if he might like to join him for dinner. Properly, this time.

“Yes,” Javert grumbles. “I suppose I must, now.” But Valjean knows what he means.


End file.
